Explore the vast range of titles available.

The accessible, non-technical guide to applying and benefiting from blockchain technology. Blockchain has grown at an enormous rate in a very short period of time. In a business context, blockchain can level the playing field between small and large organisations in several ways: Exact copies of the immutable, time-stamped data is held by all parties, all transactions can be viewed in real time, data blocks are cryptographically linked, all raw materials are traceable and smart contracts ensure no middle-men, ease of audit and reduced friction. The trust, transparency, security, quality and reduced costs of blockchain make it a game-changing technology that crosses sectors, industries and borders with ease. Even though the technologies are ready for adoption, businesses remain largely unaware of their full potential and effective implementation. End users require accurate and up-to-date information on the practical applications of blockchain — Commercializing Blockchain provides it. A practical and easy-to-understand guide to blockchain, this timely book illustrates how this revolutionary technology can be used to transform governments, businesses, enterprises and entire communities. The author draws from his experience with global retailers, global technology companies, UCL Centre for Blockchain technologies, the government of the UK, Retail Blockchain Consortium and many other sources to present real-world case studies on the use and benefits of blockchain. Topics include financial transactions, tokenisation, identity management, supply chain transparency, global shipping and freight, counterfeiting and more. Provides practical guidance for blockchain transactions in business operations * Provides practical guidance for blockchain transactions in business operations * Demonstrates how blockchain can add value and bring increased efficiency to commercial operations * Covers all of the essential components of blockchain such as traceability, provenance, certification and authentication * Requires no technical expertise to embrace blockchain strategies Commercializing Blockchain: Strategic Applications in the Real World is ideal for enterprises seeking to develop and deploy blockchain technology, particularly in areas retail, supply chain and consumer goods.

The concept of civil–military integration (CMI) was officially introduced in the 1990s in the United States to transform industrial bases in defense amidst shifting geopolitical dynamics. CMI aims to blur the lines between civilian and military sectors, fostering the sharing of resources and technological advancement. This paper looks at the practice of CMI in China and its shift to military–civil fusion (MCF). Though the concept only emerged in the late 20th century, CMI in its other forms such as defense conversion and diversification has been practiced in China since the Mao era. However, the transition from CMI to MCF underscores the evolution of China’s strategic priorities, aligning military and civilian resources for technological advancement and national rejuvenation. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has elevated MCF into a national strategy. MCF is considered essential for achieving China’s strategic goals and has entered a rapid stage of development, reflecting Xi’s commitment to modernizing the PLA and advancing national rejuvenation to realize the “Chinese Dream.” China’s efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in defense production and assert its military prowess on the global stage propelled by the MCF strategy under Xi Jinping have global geopolitical implications.

In today's increasingly close social interactions, foreign language teaching has become more and more important. The newly promoted undergraduate colleges in the old industrial bases are a new topic in the development of foreign language teaching. This paper analyzes the teaching principles and working methods of the old industrial bases and introduces the teaching of the newly promoted undergraduate colleges and the primary stage of Russian in the old industrial base from the analysis of big data. This has very important practical significance for the new method of teaching Russian primary stage.

This paper aims to study how to innovate and develop the culture of the old industrial base of Northeast China in the environment of big data. In this paper, based on sorting out the big data processing process, a data mining model based on the Bayesian network is established, parameter learning is performed using great likelihood estimation, and the Bayes-Dilley scoring function is obtained by structure learning. Then, based on the trained network, the big data mining analysis is performed on the cultural industry of the old industrial base of northeast China and the northeast China cultural impression words on social networks. From 2018 to 2021, the successive annual growth values of the cultural industry of the old industrial base of northeast China are 119.835 billion yuan, 120.345 billion yuan, 115.764 billion yuan, 116.001 billion yuan, and the proportion of GDP increased from 2.11% raised to 2.38%. Among them, Jilin was raised from 2.14% to 2.46%, Heilongjiang from 2.65% to 2.72%, and Liaoning from 1.03% to 1.52%. The cultural innovation of the old industrial base in Northeast China under the environment of big data should abandon the traditional culture, find the cultural positioning, break through the thinking stereotype, create a new advanced culture, and change the ideology.

Measuring the economic and social effects of the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy is critical to addressing regional sustainable development in China. To shed light on this issue, an integrated perspective was adopted that is combined with the difference-in-differences method to measure the effects of the strategy on economic growth and social development in Northeast China. The findings suggest that the strategy has significantly improved regional economic growth and per-capita income by increasing its gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita by 25.70% and 46.00%, respectively. However, the strategy has significantly worsened the regional employment in the secondary industry of the region. In addition, the strategy has not significantly improved regional infrastructural road, education investment or social security, and has had no significant effect on mitigating regional disparity. In addition, the policy effects are highly heterogeneous across cities based on city size and characteristics. Therefore, there is no simple answer regarding whether the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy has reached its original goals from an integrated perspective. The next phase of the strategy should emphasize improving research and development (R&D) and human capital investments based on urban heterogeneity to prevent conservative path-dependency and the lock-in of outdated technologies.

The softness is an important property of tissue papers products and can be a differentiating factor in terms of consumers preference. So, the manufactures have a concern of optimizing this property starting in their industrial base tissue papers. In this work, a dedicated optical system was used for the surface topography reconstruction to characterize the crepe of 13 different industrial base tissue papers, and to study the relationships with their structural properties. In this context, the main objective was the analysis of the 3D reconstruction surface maps of the samples and the corresponding Fourier transformations for the crepe characterization considering the dominant spatial frequencies, depth, and wavelengths of the crepe folds per length unit. A thorough and detailed study was carried out using only the 4 samples that were found to be the extreme cases in terms of handfeel (HF), the worst two and the best two. These calculations, together with the 3D maps obtained with the optical system, the global and magnified images of their surfaces, and the images of their fibrous suspensions, allowed to infer and discriminate the differences that exist between them, which are important for the evaluation and optimization of the global tissue paper quality in line with the conventional methods.

Resource-based cities face unique challenges when undergoing urban transitions because their non-renewable resources will eventually be exhausted. In this article, we introduce a new method of evaluating the urban transition performance of resource-based cities from economic, social and eco-environmental perspectives. A total of 19 resource-based cities in Northeast China are studied from 2003 to 2012. The results show that resource-based cities in Jilin and Liaoning provinces performed better than those in Heilongjiang province. Liaoyuan, Songyuan and Baishan were ranked as the top three resource-based cities; and Jixi, Yichun and Heihe were ranked last. Multi-resource and petroleum resource-based cities performed better than coal and forestry resource-based cities. We also analyzed the factors influencing urban transition performance using the method of the geographic detector. We found that capital input, road density and location advantage had the greatest effects on urban transition performance, followed by urban scale, remaining resources and the level of sustainable development; supporting policies and labor input had the smallest effects. Based on these insights, we have formulated several recommendations to facilitate urban transitions in China’s resource-based cities.

PurposeThis paper examines the relationship between a prime contractor's financial health and its mergers and acquisitions (M&A) spending in the defense industry. It aims to provide models that give the United States Department of Defense (DoD) indications of future M&A activity, informing decision-makers and contributing to ensuring competitive markets that benefit the consumer.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses panel data regression models on 40 companies between 1985 and 2021. The company's financial health is assessed using industry-standard financial ratios (i.e. measures of profitability, efficiency, solvency and liquidity) while controlling for economic factors such as national productivity, defense budgets and firm size.FindingsThe results show a significant relationship between efficiency and M&A spending, indicating that companies with lower efficiency tend to spend more on M&As. However, there was no significant relationship between M&A spending and a company's profitability or solvency. These results were consistent with previous research and the study's hypotheses for profitability and solvency. However, the effect of liquidity was the opposite of the expected result, possibly due to the defense industry's different view on liquidity compared to previous research.Originality/valueThe paper provides insights into the relationship between a prime contractor's financial health and its M&A spending, a topic with limited research. The findings can inform policymakers and regulators on the industrial base's future M&A activity, ensuring competitive markets that benefit the consumer.

In the context of the increasingly intensified innovation competition, improving industrial innovation efficiency is the key to achieving the sustainable development of the old industrial base. This paper adopts the thinking of regional research to study the laws of industrial innovation in the old industrial base and takes the lock-in effect as the connection point between the industrial evolution history and industrial innovation efficiency. Based on the perspective of the lock-in effect, the three-stage industrial innovation model, the lock-in effect identification method, and the extended Porter model are creatively constructed. This paper chooses Jilin Province in Northeast China as a case, dissects the evolution history of industrial innovation in detail, and uses super-efficiency DEA, the Granger test, geographical detectors, and the panel regression method for quantitative analysis. The results show the following: (1) The lock-in effect faced by the industrial innovation of the old industrial base is significant, which has an impact on industrial innovation through industrial structure, enterprise composition, management system, and degree of marketization. (2) The lock-in effect causes the old industrial base to fall into an unhealthy circle in which it is difficult for industrial enterprises to obtain sufficient benefits through industrial innovation and the ability of industrial enterprises to absorb regional innovation resources is weakened. (3) The impact mechanism of industrial innovation in the old industrial base is very complex and the lock-in effect factors are not all negative. The improvement of industrial innovation in the old industrial base needs to increase the role of market forces, reform large traditional enterprises, and increase foreign economic ties. However, it also needs policy support, and it should avoid overly radical industrial transformation and enterprise strategies.

The U.S. has transitioned from being the 20th-century global leader in civilian nuclear power to a nation searching for ways to revive its once-dominant nuclear enterprise. The future of U.S. civilian nuclear power transcends that of a science and technology issue and, fundamentally, is a policy issue. This is a policy paper that uses a nuclear power policy framework to analyze current and historical U.S. civilian nuclear power policy and to identify weaknesses and deficiencies that need to be overcome in order for the U.S. to (1) leverage advanced nuclear reactors as a domestic technology to meet energy security and reliability objectives under carbon constraints, (2) operationalize national security as a priority objective and (3) restore the U.S. as a major global exporter of nuclear technology. The results of this analysis indicate that the national security implications of U.S. nuclear power have been marginalized in general due to the domestic market challenges of competing with less expensive and oftentimes more socially acceptable technologies, as well as the international challenges of competing with state-owned nuclear enterprises. The results are then discussed and used for making three following policy recommendations: (1) conduct a U.S. nuclear industrial base review; (2) create a demand signal using U.S. military installations; and (3) shift away from a sell-side nuclear vendor model for global exports to a buy-side model brokered by a third-party integrator that can work with multiple U.S. nuclear partners.